The Birth Mother

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He looked over at her silently, unable to hear or be heard above the deafening roar of the band. He wasn’t sure what he had to say, anyway. She smiled at him, her eyes promising him things he couldn’t have. He smiled back, wondering what it was about her that made her so different from all of the other women he’d dated.

  It had been far too long since he’d had a woman. Too long since he’d felt the soft gliding of a woman’s fingers on his body, pleasuring him, getting tangled in the hair on his chest, digging into his back. Too long since he’d kissed the delicate flesh of a woman’s body, since he’d heard her cry out in passion and delight.

  And it was going to be even longer. His first and only concern right now was Nicki. And if it turned out that Jennifer didn’t want Nicki, then he would never have Jennifer.

  But he held Jennifer’s hand throughout the remainder of the concert, and he took it again as they walked to his Jeep afterward. “I, uh, don’t have all the times set for next week yet. I’ll have Jacci give you a call with them on Friday,” he said, as if talking business with her somehow made the fact that he was touching her less dangerous.

  “I won’t be in on Friday.”

  Bryan helped her over a knee-high wall as they took a shortcut between parking lots.

  “You’re taking the day off?”

  He’d wondered how she was going to spend Nicki’s birthday, if she even remembered what day it was.

  “We’re having the carpets cleaned in the executive offices. It’s an annual thing.”

  The carpet cleaned. Nothing more profound than that. He released her to unlock the passenger door of the Jeep. “As it happens, I have the day off, as well. I have some personal business to attend to.”

  “Oh. Will it take all day?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m driving up to Shallowbrook.”

  “Isn’t that where you said you grew up?”

  “Yeah. It’s a great little town.” Or at least it was. Before a tornado swept in and destroyed everything in its path.

  He told himself not to be disappointed that she hadn’t remembered Nicki’s birthday. He didn’t expect her to have spent the past twelve years thinking about the daughter she’d given away. And she had no way of knowing how difficult this particular day was going to be for Nicki. And for him.

  She didn’t know because he chose not to tell her. And he was no closer to doing so. He hated the indecision. He preferred to act and deal with the consequences. But this wasn’t about him. It was about Nicki. And so far, all he knew was that Nicki’s mother didn’t want children, and apparently never thought about the one she’d had. But how would Nicki react if he told her he couldn’t find her mother? Would she break down completely?

  “Would you like to come in for some coffee?” Jennifer asked half an hour later as she unlocked the door of the penthouse.

  The vulnerable look in her eyes was almost his undoing. She hadn’t offered lightly. But he knew what would happen if he stepped inside that door.

  “I’d love to, but I’ll need to take a rain check. I have work to do with Calvin being gone.”

  She looked disappointed. “You’re going to work tonight?”

  “For a while.” It might help him sleep.

  “And you thought I didn’t take enough time to smell the roses.”

  Bryan reached out, brushing aside the hair framing her face. He wished he’d met her in another lifetime. “I’ll take time to smell them. Just as soon as Calvin returns,” he promised.

  It was a promise he wasn’t going to keep. And he wasn’t going to kiss her good-night, either. He saw the confusion in her eyes as he stepped back into the elevator. He was hurting her, but there didn’t seem to be any way not to.

  BRYAN WAS UP early on Friday, creeping around his kitchen furtively, trying not to make a sound as he prepared Nicki’s favorite breakfast—pancakes with blueberry syrup, and grits. He piled it all on a tray he’d decorated with linen and a china plate he’d bought specifically for the occasion and topped it off with a single yellow rose. He was going to make her feel special today if it was the last thing he did.

  “Up and at ‘em, kid,” he said cheerily as he pushed into her room.

  “But it’s the first day of summer vacation,” came the sleepy voice from the bed.

  “It’s more than that, and you know it. Now open your eyes and see what I’ve brought you.”

  She turned over reluctantly and sat up, her eyes still only half-open.

  Holding the orange juice steady, he set the tray down across her legs. She looked at it and then at him.

  “Oh, Uncle Bryan,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Happy birthday, Nick.”

  She looked back down at the tray. “My very own breakfast in bed. Just like a grown-up.”

  “Just like a princess,” Bryan corrected, handing her a tissue from her nightstand. “Now eat up before it gets cold. The chef’ll get mighty cranky if his food goes to waste.”

  She ate every bite.

  THEY’D BEEN BACK to Shallowbrook several times since the tornado. Nicki had insisted on it during those first months when visiting the cemetery was the only thing that seemed to give her any comfort. But it had been a couple of months since their last visit, and Bryan headed north toward his hometown reluctantly. A lot of plans had gone into the day. But he still wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing taking Nicki back, especially on the anniversary of the tragedy that had changed their lives.

  He left the sides and top on the Jeep for the trip, and Nicki stared silently out her window as he drove. “We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day,” he said after they’d been on the interstate for several minutes. The sun was shining. No clouds in the sky. No storms on the way. Thank God.

  Nicki nodded warily.

  “We could run across the border to Tennessee before we go if you’d like, pick up some fireworks for the Fourth of July.”

  “Okay,” Nicki said with the same lack of enthusiasm.

  “Would you rather we stay in Atlanta, Nick? We can go back to town and find something fun to do there, or we could take the plane up.”

  “Nah, that’s okay.”

  They passed a billboard advertising the Gold Rush museum in Dahlonega with promises of gold-panning opportunities, reminding Bryan of the first time he’d taken Nicki off on his own. Lori and Tom had been driving down to Atlanta to stay with Bryan after Christmas one year when Nicki was about four, but instead of driving straight through, as Bryan was doing, they were going to take a detour and stop at an outlet mall on the way. Rather than travel with her parents to the mall, Nicki had begged to ride to Atlanta with him in the Jeep. He’d told her it was fine with him, certain that Lori, who never let her daughter out of her sight for more than five minutes, would refuse. He’d had the shock of his life when she’d agreed. Apparently shopping with a four-year-old wasn’t exactly a picnic.

  So he’d buckled Nicki in and started out for home, but Lori and Tom, in spite of their detour, had arrived there long before he did. That was because Nicki, asking questions about everything she saw, had insisted when they’d passed a colorful sign advertising the Gold Rush museum that they stop and put gold in pans, too. She’d conned him into three more stops along the way—for fudge, a hamburger and, the last, a traveling carnival she saw when he’d pulled off for her to use the rest room—before he finally got her home.

  Lori had been furious, waiting in the parking lot of his condo when he pulled in sometime after dark. Crying with relief and hollering at him at the same time, she’d taken one look at Nicki sleeping soundly in the seat beside him and hit him in the chest with both fists over and over. He’d never seen his sister so angry.

  What he’d give now to have her angry at him again. To have her there at all. Or even to have back that talkative little elf who’d gotten him into so much trouble. He looked over at Nicki now, trapped in her silent world of grief, and wanted to pound his fists into something, too.

  “Calvin’s due ho
me this weekend, so what d’ya say we give him a week or two to get settled in and then we take a trip to the beach?”

  “Okay. If you want to.”

  “Don’t you want to go, Nick? We could do some snorkeling.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He saw a sign for her favorite burger joint. “You want to stop for lunch?”

  “Okay.”

  Damn. I could tell her now, if I wanted to.

  He bought her a hamburger, french fries and a chocolate shake, and refused to leave the restaurant until she’d finished all of it. But he gave up on conversation when they got back in the Jeep. He was too concerned about what lay ahead of them, or rather, Nicki’s reaction to it, to force a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.

  They’d been back in the Jeep for about half an hour when Nicki broke the silence. “Uncle Bryan? I have something to ask you…and I don’t want you to get mad at me.”

  They were the most words she’d strung together in days. “Ask away. I never get mad at you.”

  “It’s about my other mother. I just wondered if you’d heard anything yet.”

  He glanced over, expecting to see her staring out the window. She wasn’t. She was looking straight at him, trying to hide the hope in her young eyes.

  “I…” He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just crush that hope. “We’re making progress, Nick. They have her name.”

  “They do? What is it?” Her eyes were almost bright, her voice sounding more like a little girl’s than it had since he could remember.

  What is it. He wasn’t ready. “I don’t know yet, honey, not until I get the report. And don’t get too excited. They haven’t found her yet—they just have her name. She could be anywhere in the country, or even out of it, and there are probably several women with the same name.”

  “Yeah, but if they could get this far, they just have to find her. I can’t believe they really know her name. I wonder what it is…” She looked out at the road as if the answer was written there. “Maybe Ariel or…or Cameron. That would be neat, don’t you think? Cameron sounds like a cool name.”

  I feel like scum, he thought. “It’s probably something ordinary, honey, like Debbie or Sue.” Or Jennifer.

  “Maybe. I can’t wait to find out. I wonder how soon they’ll find her?”

  “It’s hard to say, sprite. Just don’t get your hopes up too high.”

  “I know. I won’t. And about that trip to the beach?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I guess it’d be good.”

  Just the mention that her birth mother had a name, and suddenly she wanted to go to the beach. She actually wanted to do something. It was going to be damn near impossible to tell her her mother couldn’t be found. But what would happen if he told Nicki who she was and Jennifer walked away from her? Again.

  They stopped for some flowers at the local florist, now set up in a brand-new shop on Main Street rather than the historical building Bryan remembered from his youth, and went out to pay their tributes to Lori and Tom and Bryan’s parents.

  Bryan cried inside for the young girl who knelt so carefully on her parents’ grave, telling them she loved them as she left her flowers there for them, explaining to Lori through her tears that she’d brought her carnations because they smelled the best and lasted the longest. He stood back, allowing her time with them, thinking that if it were up to him, they’d never visit the graves at all. What he needed from his family he had in his heart. But he knew Nicki wasn’t old enough to understand that yet.

  She didn’t say much else, just pulled some grass from around their stone, and then stood and turned away. Bryan put his arm around her and walked her back to the Jeep.

  “I wish birthdays had never been invented,” she said, trying not to cry again.

  Bryan pulled her into his arms and held her, a few tears of his own escaping from his tightly clenched eyes, while she sobbed out her anguish. He held her until her breathing evened and he knew she’d spent all the hurt inside of her. For now.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Nicki gave him one last squeeze. “I love you, Uncle Bryan.”

  “I love you, too, Nick. Always.”

  “Do you think Mom’ll be mad at me for finding my other mother?” she asked as she climbed back into the Jeep.

  “No. Your mother was prepared for the time you might have questions. She knew she was your real mother, and that was all that mattered to her.” Bryan had stretched the truth a little bit. It wouldn’t do Nicki any good to know that though Lori had been prepared for the questions and would have encouraged the search, she’d also worried about losing Nicki to her biological mother someday. He thought that was probably a normal reaction, though.

  Instead of heading to the interstate, Bryan turned the Jeep back toward town.

  “Where’re we going?” Nicki looked nervous.

  “There’s someone here who wants to see you, Nick,” he said, hoping she was up for it. She hadn’t wanted to see any of her old friends since she’d left Shallowbrook, but they had a surprise waiting for her. One he hoped she’d like.

  “Who?”

  “Just wait and see.”

  He turned a couple of corners and pulled onto a street that hadn’t been touched by the tornado.

  “Sally’s house?” Nicki asked as he pulled into her best friend’s drive. She didn’t seem happy to be there.

  Bryan turned off the ignition. “C’mon. Let’s go in.”

  Ten girls were waiting on the covered porch, all dressed in shorts and tops like Nicki’s, several of them sporting the daisies Nicki wore, and all talking at once. They stopped when they saw Nicki, probably not sure what to make of the changes in their once lively and talkative friend, and then Sally ran forward and threw her arms around Nicki’s waist.

  “Nicki! I can’t believe you’re finally here!”

  Nicki stood awkwardly in Sally’s embrace, looking over her shoulder at the group of friends waiting behind Sally.

  Come on, Nick. You’ll be okay. Bryan didn’t know why he’d ever thought this might help.

  The other girls rushed forward then, surrounding Nicki, and Bryan lost sight of his niece as they tried to make her feel welcome. They were all talking at once, telling Nicki about the party they’d planned for her, wishing her happy birthday. He didn’t hear Nicki utter a word.

  His gaze sought Betty Sanderson, Sally’s divorced mother, over the girls’ heads. Her eyes were full of sympathy.

  “Come on, girls,” Betty said cheerfully. “Let’s go inside and show Nicki what we’ve got for her.”

  He waited until they’d all pushed their way through the door before walking up the steps himself. “It’ll be all right,” Betty said as she held the door open for him.

  He’d grown up with Betty. He’d even dated her a time or two. She’d filled out a little since then, and her dark hair had a couple of strands of early gray, but she still looked great. She’d always been smart, and perceptive beyond her years, too, even back in high school, and he’d learned to trust her judgment. This time he was counting on her being right.

  Nicki was sitting on the couch, the girls beside her and on the floor in front of her, their talking making up for Nicki’s near-silence. They didn’t seem to notice she was answering their questions with only one or two words, sometimes just a shrug.

  “How are you doing?” Betty asked Bryan quietly, standing just inside the room with him.

  “We’re getting along.”

  “She’s still not opening up much, is she?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if she ever will. Maybe the tornado did something to her we’ll never be able to fix.”

  “I doubt that, Bryan. She’s young yet. Give her time. Maybe our little surprise today will help.”

  “Or make her miss what she lost even more.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Bryan watched his niece parry questions, hating the lost look in her eyes. She used to be the nois
iest one in the bunch. But she wasn’t a part of their chatter anymore. Not only had she moved away physically, she’d moved away emotionally, leaving her childlike trust and innocence behind.

  “Have you made any progress on your search for her birth mother?”

  “I found her.”

  “Nicki’s met her? What happened? Didn’t it go well?”

  “Nicki doesn’t know I’ve found her. She thinks we’re still looking.”

  Betty frowned. “Don’t you think you ought to tell her? The last time you called you made it sound like it was all that mattered to her.”

  “Which is exactly why I’m waiting. Look at her, Betty. I’m not sure she can handle it if her mother doesn’t want to acknowledge her.”

  Betty looked over to where Nicki sat, quiet and solemn, with her friends.

  “She doesn’t want her?”

  “I don’t know yet, because I haven’t told her about Nicki, either, but it doesn’t look good. She’s uncomfortable around kids. Says she doesn’t ever want to be a mother.”

  “Oh, no,” Betty said sadly.

  “Well, she’s not as bad as she sounds. That’s why I haven’t given up on the whole thing yet. The woman’s really something. She’s the most honest, fair, compassionate person I’ve ever met. She’s tough when she needs to be, she’s a first-rate mechanic, though not by trade, she’s got a great sense of humor and very loyal friends.” Bryan stopped.

  “It sounds like you’ve gotten to know her rather well.”

  “I took a job creating a new campaign for the company she owns.”

  Betty’s eyebrows raised. “You work for her and she doesn’t know about Nicki?”

  “Not yet. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep them a secret from each other much longer.”

  “How do you think the woman’ll take the news?”

  “She’ll probably never speak to me again.”

  Betty yanked on the end of his ponytail. “Turn on some of that charm of yours, Chambers. She’ll come around.”

  Bryan grinned at his friend, glad he’d kept in touch with Betty over the past year. “So,” he said, ready to be done with what he and Betty had planned, one way or the other, “let’s get this show on the road.”